Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

Superhero Trevize, Intuition Man, tries to find Earth, getting up to all sorts of adventures in the attempt. He’s intuited that if he finds Earth he will know why he chose Gaia at the end of Foundation’s Edge. Trevize, Pelorat, and Bliss find five different human planets, then Earth. And, as is usual for a science fiction journey narrative, each of these societies shows off some aspect of humanity, extrapolated to a logical conclusion.

Gaia: The book starts on Gaia to give a reminder of the kind of wholistic oneness of all life and time that Trevize has chosen. Then the journey begins.

Comporellon: A Soviet analogy, but also with some puritanical leanings⁠—Victorian Soviets. Trevize and friends are trapped, but end up getting out through sexually satisfying their captor. The idea being communicated is that this repressed society bases power on taboo and might-makes-right. By flipping the power structure on its head (apparently Trevize is fairly demanding of his seduced, and rough, something she typically is to her lovers, and he impresses her) their captor cannot help but let them go⁠—Trevize bested her in her strongest suit, therefore he’s too dangerous to keep around. What if he realizes that he’s better and tries to manipulate her into doing his will? He cannot stay. These taboo societies cannot integrate any excession from outside their scope⁠—instead of integrating Trevize and friends, the idea is to ignore Trevize and friends by sending them away. Where Gaia is inclusive, from the littlest pebble to the most complex mind, and humble, Comporellon is exclusive and proud.

Aurora: Ecological disaster. At first everything appears alright, pastoral even. The husk of a robot is discovered, giving hope. But then packs of wild dogs appear. Made possible by mismanaged ecological balance on Aurora in the past⁠—basically, pets weren’t regulated and when humans left dogs were already everywhere⁠—these dog gangs threaten the heroes. Using weapons, the heroes escape back to the ship. The idea that on this dog-eat-dog world, a weapon capable of inflicting major pain can control the out-of-balance ecology, shows that past human error is dangerous to present humans. Here this idea applies ecologically to show the stupidity of unbalanced environments⁠—even this slight unbalance of having no real predators for the dogs, who breed rapidly and overrun the planet. Where Gaia involves an understanding of the wholeness of the complex systems of an environment, Aurora forgot to limit dogs and ended up going to them wholly.

Solaria: Individual isolationism taken to the extreme. These fine physical specimens, super-human really, with superpowers of controlling vast energy flows, shun all personal contact and are able to breed with themselves, without a partner. Their isolated nature makes them paranoid and only the unexpected power of Gaia through Bliss saves the heroes. They also take away a child, Fallom, who would be dead if not for their intervention. Obviously, this planet bears out the old Aristotelian adage that “humans are by nature political beasts”, and to change that too much too widely is deadly, even with tranhumanistic biotechnology. Yet this planet raises the most interesting questions concerning Gaia, as Bliss is forced to kill twice, an act which Gaia doesn’t typically countenance. The necessity of death is well within Gaia’s comfort zone, but this double killing in self-defense and other-defense is a gray area that Asimov explores. This is where I started to really enjoy the novel. Bliss becomes a bit of a character here, conflicted over the killings she did, but unconflicted over the result⁠—their escape and saving of the child Fallom. Gaia is all community, Solaria is all individual. The one forces the other to kill.

Melpomenia: A dead planet, the only life of which is a rapidly colonizing moss that feeds on traces of carbon dioxide in the thin atmosphere. The heroes overcome this infection through technology, and end up finding the coordinates for all 50 of the original Spacer Worlds, using them to project a sphere, at the center of which they believe they will find Earth. The idea here is that even a normal society⁠—with civic structures, appreciation of the past, and a library⁠—can turn their world dangerous and uninhabitable, yet technology can overcome the environmental danger. Where Gaia exists on a continuum, looking forever both forward and backward for guidance, by abandoning Melpomenia humanity has damned it, forgetting the future for the short term-comfort of abandoning a deteriorating, hard to live on planet.

Alpha: An idyllic, peaceful water world with a single island on which topless women live. This is a different type of isolationism than Solaria⁠—this is isolation of a community. Though they have advanced biotechnology and weather controls, they live a simple life and enjoy music and good food and community. They are paranoid that their existence will be known by the larger galaxy. Sex, music, conversation, good food, customs, tradition. But with a dark side of the isolated community distrustful of outsiders trying to murder the outsiders. Trevize’s liaison with a local woman saves them as she falls for him and warns the heroes to leave before the hour of their death. Gaia, on the other hand, is open to the rest of the galaxy and actively trying to integrate all of the galaxy into itself, without the paranoia that leads to attempted murder. This episode shows that even advanced biological and weather technologies will not save humanity from itself, though it may help overcome some of the problems on the other worlds.

The Spaceship: In the spaces between these stories, life on the spaceship is examined and also found to be wanting. The superhuman Fallom doesn’t understand its own powers or place in the galaxy. Pelorat is lost in the past and present, ignoring the future. Trevize clings to his individuality and worries at trying to take that away from future humans. Bliss attempts to bridge all these gaps, yet is coming from such a different perspective that she cannot be fully understood by any of the others. In contrast, on Gaia everything is understood in community, and shared in the wholistic oneness of being. However, this snapshot of how that community will relate to the larger galaxy tends to show that it’s a process which will take both sides coming to terms with temporary measures in order to achieve the future utopia. In science fiction, this willingness to show the between-times, between one state and another of existence, showing the amount of work needed to bridge the gap, is rare and well appreciated here. However, the point is to show that if all were already Gaia this whole process would go much smoother.

Earth: Of course, Daneel shows up, explains all, and Trevize’s mind is laid to rest. Obviously Gaia is better than what the galaxy currently has to offer, and Trevize is convinced that if aliens from outside the Galaxy invade, Gaia becoming Galaxia is the best defense for humanity. So he agrees to the community oneness of all life in the end, but it was already quite obvious Asimov was leading him there: through political, historical, ecological, societal, and logical processes.

The theme, the discussion of the whole book seems to be fear of the other: extra-galaxials eventually, but also the dogs fear others, the Comprolleans imprison others out of hand, the Solarians kill outsiders and each other due to fear of others, Melpomenia serves to show the heroes fear of the unknown outsider of the moss, the people of Alpha fear others but have no fear amongst themselves, and even Daneel fears that others will guide the galaxy in a different direction than he intends. Gaia, the ever present counterpoint, serves to show that more understanding and context and history will overcome the needs that lead to these fears. It’s an interesting argument that this book lays out, and nothing like any other Asimov I’ve read before. I hope I can find more like it. This book is the first Asimov novel I really liked. He writes poorly still, but the storytelling carries the poor writing.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton

This book made me laugh, a lot, and often. But it also tickled my brain a lot, and it excited me. It’s a rare work to do all three—be funny, intelligent, and exciting. Some of my favorite books and authors do this regularly, and I may have found another favorite book.

As a writer, Crichton’s strength rests in:
—His ability to make the dialogue sound unique for most of the characters. It’s a rare talent and one I always look up to wherever I can find it.
—He uses dialogue to snap off these witty one-liners and then explore opposing views briefly. For instance, “there is no cure for birth.” That’s a brilliant one-liner. I love that.
—As a writer he uses language sparingly, in the sense that the word “fuck” is only used once, which gives it a certain type of power in the novel. He takes care in his use of words, playing to their strengths.
—His language is concise and roundabout. Where Asimov tries for the greatest clarity he can, Crichton plays with words more, stretches sentence forms more, and comes up with a voice that is good to read. He’s not going for direct clarity, he is going for building language in interesting ways.

Then, as a storyteller, I think his skill shows through clearly. He uses humor judiciously—it’s not all slapstick and irreverently punny. But he puts bits of wit and jokes in to lighten the mood, set the overall tone, explain and explore characters. He refrains from overburdening the novel with humor—the notable torture scene has no humor, which is a strong move as a storyteller. The humor successfully assists the novel in its overall arc.

The characters are not characters though. To me, this novel is an allegorical philosophy, all wrapped up in an adventurous comedy. Nietzsche (Von Prum) versus Sartre or Diogenes (Babbaluche) versus Machiavelli (Bombolini) versus Kant (Tufa) versus romanticism (Fabio) versus Engineering (Luigi) versus American Optimism (Roberto). These philosophical allegories play out in the day-to-day of the hillside villagers, as they approach situation after situation. The grand gesture is the rightful province of the post-modern. Organization falls to the duty-bound Kantian. Inward exploration by the Nietzschian leads to self deception. Machiavelli was right about human behavior, but a heartless bastard. Fabio is the frustrated romantic lusting after the romantic gesture. The Engineer gets things done but is only useful on such a narrow scope that he is useless for much of life, and sits drunk all day and nobody minds. And American Optimism can see outside the box easily, but doesn’t ever see the whole picture. There is no traditional winner in this novel, it's more a compare contrast allegory than one with a champion.

These types of tales tend to be organized around journeys where the philosophical protagonist visits arguments in turn on a physical journey. Small Gods, Piers Plowman, Foundation and Earth, The Pilgrim’s Progress—but Crichton keeps his focus on a single place, the small town of Santa Vittoria, instead of traveling all over. And I think this is because there is no real protagonist to the arguments, no champion of the author. Instead, this is an extended compare and contrast of various philosophies and concepts through facing situations that face the townspeople.

The central question is what is life worth. “It is better to live one day as a lion than 1000 years as a sheep,” said Mussolini. And this is the central question of the novel. What do you risk your life for? Work? Your effort to produce? Family? Country? Honor? Duty? Von Prum is willing to give up his life to do his duty. Bombolini the clown tries to commit suicide in order to atone for the wrongs of his past and because his wife has taken his purpose of selling wine from him. The mayor Bombolini risks his life for his people’s life’s work, the hiding of the wine, and most of the minor characters agree. Fabio risks his life for the grand romantic gesture—both in trying to save Bombolini and in joining the resistance. Babbaluche gives his life for the good joke, for the end of his choosing. Tufa, that damaged fascist, thinks that by avenging his honor on his cheating woman, he can atone for what he did to people in the war. If there is a conclusion, I think the conclusion has to be that no one philosophy can explain all of reality, tradition and upbringing underpin every human, and you had better examine what you're willing to risk your life for before it's too late. Is it worth it to sacrifice to live ten more hours, when those hours will be spent uselessly? Why not take pleasure in the here and now, within moderation?

The story is the same, over and over, only the facts are different and the names and the places.

I find this a thoroughly post-modern book: tropes and cliches are both comedically sent-up while simultaneously shown to still retain some power. Like Pratchett, Vonnegut, and Heller, this is a sensational tactic and book. The flipside is that the characters are sketchy, not deep, and they seem to come and go randomly. But reading this as an allegory really unlocked it for me and I love it.

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov

Foundation’s Edge is the first novel in the series that started with short stories, then progressed into novellas. This is one of those books where the author relies upon the conclusion. I mean Trevize travels around, a master of intuition, and the thrust of the travels changes over time: go to Trantor, locate the Second Foundation, find Earth, find Gaia. And then, at the end, it’s all revealed to be a ruse as Gaia has been guiding his path all along, towards itself. This is a dangerous tactic—it can easily leave the reader feeling like the story missed the point and started way too late in the book, like the earlier chapters are a waste of time. Yet here, I don’t feel that way. I feel that Asimov knows where the story is going, and guided it there in a meandering but intentional path. Though the destination remains hidden, the amount of foreshadowing taking place makes me think Asimov had a firm grip on the overall tale, if not all of the details.

The foreshadowing mostly pertains to three aspects: Trevize’s gift of intuition, the Second Foundation’s manipulation, and the two mysteries slowly revealing themselves as the same mystery—the Second Foundation’s conundrum and Gaia. These aspects are brought up consistently, with the reader clearly knowing more than the characters, leading the reader to understand that something is going to happen with these foreshadowings. It creates a sense of anticipation, a kind of wondering how Asimov is going to tie all these together—although the flip side is wondering how in the world these three relate at all. Yet, a little trust in the author leads to an interesting, if far-fetched conclusion.

The conclusion clearly lays out three options. The novel already laid out these three options, though the purpose of laying them out is unknown until the decision point comes.
—First, the Foundation and “normal” parts of the Galaxy. Seldon’s Plan is to allow the Foundation to take over the galaxy, to establish a Galactic Empire, to shorten the period of dark age warring between the first and second Empires. Trevize, Pelorat, Gendibal, and Branno start the book off, and they clearly explain the Foundation, its goals, the negatives of its current state, and the early drive of the book—a belief in the existence of the Second Foundation leading two of the four desperately trying to search for it. They then travel off to explore part of the Galaxy outside of, but still related to, the Foundation, which shows the context of the issue at hand.
-—Second, the chapters of the Second Foundation show the complacency, lack of drive, and factional infighting of the Second Foundation. Instead of this almost all-powerful guardian deus ex machina—like they were portrayed in the earlier books—the Second Foundation is revealed to be breaking down. With no real crises to struggle against, their energy turns against themselves. However, their underlying beliefs show them becoming masters of the First Foundation when the time is ripe, a sort of mental aristocracy that can guide the ship of the war-born Empire.
—Third, when Pelorat and Trevize finally reach Gaia, the third option is fully explored. The planet Gaia is a hive-consciousness composed of animate and inanimate beings, all contributing to the sentience of the whole. Two avatars of Gaia drive this exploration through Asimov’s typical explanatory dialogue: Bliss and Dom. Gaia abhors early death. Since everything is a part of Gaia, the necessary death of things provides the necessary sustenance of everything else. In other words, Bliss may die, but her death and burial will feed the micro-organisms that compose the super-organism of Gaia. Her eating the plant life of Gaia is a sort of reincarnation of that plant life because it is already a part of Gaia, as is she, so it’s a transformation more than a death. This hyper-spiritualism, ecological consciousness, and hive-mindedness is the third option. Gaia’s goal is to transform into Galaxia, or a similar super-organism spanning the whole Galaxy.

By the time the decision point comes, I understand that the issue under discussion is the future of humanity. More Empire of force, a new Empire of the mind, or a wholistic embracing of all life, animate or inanimate, as a part of a larger whole wholeness. And that’s a bit farfetched, not only in the equating of the “lifespan” of rocks with rocks having a “life”. What themes can I draw out of this for my day-to-day life? This question still rolls around in my mind. Biographically, this is about the time Asimov was becoming an advocate for ecological issues facing Earth, and the book is a call to ecological action to prevent catastrophe. But the inbred intuitive superpower Trevize has is still slightly weak, and tends to undercut this ecological theme a bit (as well as the simply strange aside about the Eternals?). Trevize himself doesn’t understand why he chooses Gaia as the path forward for humanity (hence the next book in the series, of course). He’s the intuitive master of the Galaxy, which is explained in-world as “he has mysterious mental powers that would have been Second Foundation worthy.” And sure, maybe that works for some people, but it is a little weak to me, and in a book that relies so much on the conclusion, a little dissatisfaction with the conclusion magnifies across the whole novel. The future of humanity is a strong theme, but of the three options given, only one could really come to pass as far as we know—mentalist mind powers and super-organistic hive-minds are unknown at this time, in terms of human experience.

But I don’t want to belittle this book too much. I liked it. That opening is sensationally good. Trevize and Branno facing off over the question of the Second Foundation, the mayor in her moment of triumph, the councilman in his quest to question the nature of reality. Both are conflicted characters who are misunderstanding each other—and this is fairly rare for Asimov, who relies on same-sounding characters whose conflict comes from without. Here the conflict comes from within and it’s even explored a little. This is a better Asimov than anything I’ve read. It still has the conspiracies, the wild logical leaps, the backfilling of information, and the political intrigue, but by trying to work with actual characters, it all works better because I understand them more.

The feeling I have throughout isn’t, “where is Asimov going with this mess?” but, “I wonder what happens next?” And I think this feeling comes from the effective fore-shadowing, and strong chapters that are almost self-reliant. In a way, each chapter is a short story and this novel is a linked series of inter-related short stories telling an overarching story, like a pulp fiction novel. It’s a strong tactic that Asimov uses to its strengths here: he doesn’t even mention what the overall story is until everybody arrives at Gaia to let Trevize choose. That technique of telling three distinct stories that are all coming closer together in each chapter is one that I have enjoyed in Iain M Banks’ works, and Asimov does it well here too. So, I think the two main reasons Asimov’s novel doesn’t fail through a disconnect between the overall story and what’s actually on the page through most of the book are these: each chapter excites—especially that first one—in its own right; the foreshadowing is effective and consistent; and the reader can see the characters growing ever closer together physically and can easily sense that some showdown is coming. I think Asimov mainly avoids the dangers of these types of tales through these three techniques.

In all, this is a good book. Almost great, but the late switch to this far-fetched future of humanity through hyper-spiritualistic environmental consciousness is a bit too jarring because the switch is predicated on Trevize Intuition Man, the superhero. Intuition being an aspect that is mentioned consistently in service of foreshadowing the story, but never really explored. However, after “The Mule” and “Search by the Foundation” were such strong stories, this strong story made me genuinely excited to hit the next book in the series. Asimov has gotten better as a storyteller, and he was already strong to begin with. As a writer, well, he still leaves a lot to be desired. But for pulp fiction, he actually tackles some interesting themes and ideas. So I’m happy I’ve read this novel.

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Another book composed of two novellas. These two are both about people searching for the Second Foundation, that of the psychologists, mentalists, and psychohistorians.

Part 1: “Search by The Mule”
The Mule returns to continue his obsessive search for the Second Foundation. Convinced they threaten his power, he has spent the five years since “The Mule” not expanding his empire much, not knowing where he can safely strike. He’s led on a merry chase by the Second Foundation that ends with his conversion to a benevolent dictator so that he can live out his days.

I’m not sure what to make of this story. I enjoyed reading it, but thinking back on my time reading the book—I couldn’t do my notes right away because of my broken arm—I recall this story dimly. It’s a cross and double cross, the final defeat of the Mule. And Asimov’s boring writing style does help keep the plot clear. But it still doesn’t thrill. It’s like somebody once said, “work on your descriptions, Isaac,” and he took that to mean, “add more boring sentences to your descriptions, Isaac.”

One thing here is that where “The Mule” talked about the soft people of the Foundation becoming too reliant upon Seldon’s Plan psychologically, Tazenda is a hard world to live on, a farming world full of snow and high winds, and it clearly creates hard people. These farmers are salt-of-the-earth folk, open with what little they have, used to isolation, and set in their ways.

The other point here is that the Mule’s downfall is precipitated on his inability to imagine people with power not wanting to use it—he can’t imagine people unlike himself. So, in his search for the Second Foundation, he’s always looking for a kingdom, a galactic power of some sort, even if he does look for a small one rather than a successful one. The Second Foundation instead hides in obscurity. This allows them to strike without warning, to plan safely, and to have time to set up their trap. In other words, because the Mule assumes other mentalists must be like himself, he falls. Similarly, because Seldon assumed that human reactions wouldn’t change, and yet the Mule was able to do just that for the ruling class of the Foundation, the Seldon Plan almost falls apart. These twin themes drive the point home well: just because you think you’re right, don’t expect others to rely on your same premises. This a great tactic too: both cause and effect in the plot are saying the same thing. The cause shows the Mule that assuming others agree with his view of reality, which both brings him to power and causes his downfall; while the effect shows the Foundation Seldon’s premise of human reactions, which both brings them to power and almost causes their downfall. Right now I can’t think of another book that pulls off this tactic, and it’s sensational.

Part 2: "Search by the Foundation"
Arkady Darell, a 14 year old girl and the granddaughter of Bayta Darell from “The Mule”, searches for the Second Foundation on behalf of the First Foundation. Some Foundationers want to eliminate the Second Foundation as a threat, they resent their influence and wish to act independently. Meanwhile, the Second Foundation struggles to figure out how to right Seldon’s Plan after the First Foundationers come to rely on their oversight for safety, sinking further into complacency and softness. The solution is to convince the Foundation that the Second Foundation exists underground on Terminus, then let them kill those Second Foundationers and think that they have won, when in reality the Second Foundation has stayed hidden and powerful behind a human shield of martyrs.

I think in one way Asimov improved as a writer here: every time I think, “huh, that’s strange”, it turns out to be intentional and part of the plot—the Second Foundation taking control of Arkady’s flight, being able to get her out of the spaceport, etc. Whereas in earlier stories there are always a number of things that are incongruous all the way through the story—the most egregious of which that I have come across is the “investigation” in Caves of Steel. In the preceding books of the Foundation Series, there are many of these incongruities, only a few of which are able to be post facto rationalized by the reader. Yet here he seems to have his writing consistent in a way that allows his storytelling to really succeed.

At the same time, the writing is still laughably bad. At one point he sets up a chase scene, and it’s getting exciting. He’s building tension well, and using quick sentences to drive the pace forward. The chase is getting more and more intense. I’m admiring that he seems to have written something a bit better than his norm. And then, this sentence, “She was running now—running wildly—searching madly for an unoccupied public booth at which one could press a button for public conveyance.” I burst into laughter and laughed for ten minutes. Asimov uses three phrases to support this tension ("running now—running wildly—searching madly", which show his typical tendency to redundantly insult the reader’s intelligence) yet subverts all of that tension by allowing himself an aside about the uses of a public booth (”at which one could press a button for public conveyance”). This disappointing lack of followthrough with the tone and scene—here even in a single sentence—shows why I read Asimov in spite of the writing. As Asimov puts it himself, “I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be 'clear'. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize.”

Yet, and this is something I need to think about more, something I need to discover more about, Asimov tells a story well. Yes, he has his “public booth” moments, but those are fairly rare—mostly because there’s often little in the way of chasing or fighting. Asimov writes dialogue and monologue, interspersed with sparsely narrated action. And he punctuates those typical scenes in his stories with action, but often has a hard time convincing the reader of the import of the action. It’s as if he thinks two or three phrases alone will set the reader on a new track, “What? I said ‘he was being followed now.’ After 30 pages of languid reflection, why isn’t me writing, ‘he is being followed’ enough to skyrocket the tension?” Tension is something to build, something to create and nurture. And Asimov isn’t great at it in any of the first three Foundation books. Yet I will still state that he tells a story well.

I’m trying to figure out why I think he tells a good story. The science fiction I like the best is that which explores characters and ideas. His dialogue explains the stories, and this helps focus his narratives on exploring ideas. So, I am finding that I personally tend to not mind Asimov’s poor writing because the ideas often carry his stories. His clear plots tend to ruminate on ideas more than human psychology. His characters are often two dimensional analogies for aspects or interpretations of the ideas. His window dressing, the worlds he creates, tend to act like his characters in being sketchy analogies of aspects of ideas. So, I think that’s probably why I find he tells good stories: the rigid focus on ideas. His dialogue, plots, characters, and worldbuilding all stay rigidly focused on the overall idea of the story. Everything is in service to the story—even to a fault in Asimov’s writing: there’s often a lack of applicable conclusions to draw from the stories because they are so farfetched that applying the Mule’s superpowers to day-to-day life or history is a stretch; the dialogue seems forced and doesn’t explain the samey-sounding characters so much as the story; the characters are typically caricatures and lack interest; and the worldbuilding leaves much to the imagination of the reader. But those are all the flipsides of the specific ways Asimov succeeds at telling stories.

There are only two memorable characters in the entire first three Foundation books: Arkady Darell and the Mule. The Mule, though driven by revenge for his mutated appearance forcing an outsider nature, is slightly inconsistent. He’s still a great example of treating the villain like a human character because all people are heroes to themselves. But Arkady seems consistent, strong, and a well-written character. She is headstrong, intelligent, curious, and trying to find her place in the world. She knows what she wants and Asimov allows that to enter the story. It’s refreshing to finally see characters in Asimov’s writing, and I hope there are more characters in his future stories.

The themes here center around paranoia and the already-mentioned Herodotus conclusion about softness. The whole narrative tries to resolve the softness problem, but the resolution comes about because a few people still retain their drive, despite the soft times of the Foundation at large. And instead of subverting the trope, the efforts of the Second Foundation reinforce the trope, hinting that Asimov believes Herodotus’ conclusion to be inescapable, but short-circuitable. These few hard people of the Foundation are hard because of their paranoia. Scared of the power of the Second Foundation, their cadre of pseudo-revolutionaries sparks this whole adventure tale. It’s difficult to determine what Asimov is trying to say about paranoia though—useful, but not to be trusted too far? Useful only when paired with accurate, intellectual analysis of reality?

Conclusion
“The Mule” and “Search by the Foundation” are the strongest stories of this series so far. Strong enough that I now want to go back and re-read the earlier tales and see if I missed something. “Search by the Mule” is a good tale, but aspects seem inconsequential to the story—why a frozen farming world? I think Asimov is a bad writer, and in my research have realized that he only ever did one draft, essentially, after imagining the ending, then the beginning, and exploring how to connect the two. His work could’ve really been improved by more revisions, but his storytelling can be superb. Having now read the Foundation Trilogy, or the first three books of the seven that Asimov wrote about the Foundation, I can’t really see the reasons for the one-off “Best Series of All Time” Hugo award, but it’s not a bad series. Maybe the later four books in the series will help me enjoy them because they come when Asimov is much more experienced as a writer. He has to be better later. He can’t be worse, can he?

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

There I was, stuck in bed healing from an arm broken in five places, and the only audiobook I could find while drugged out was Foundation and Empire. After disliking Foundation, I was not excited for this book—I sat on it without reading it for four years. Then, I tried to pump myself up to it by reminding myself how good of a short story writer Asimov is—this book is a collection of two novellas—and how much I liked two of the three novellas in The Gods Themselves. And after I turned on Foundation and Empire, I found out that I enjoyed it. These notes are trying to figure out why.

It’s certainly not that he has vastly improved as a writer. He’s not deplorable here, there’s no massive intro-info dump to drag the whole book down. But he still uses simple verbs too much and doesn’t explore the dictionary or sentence structures enough to keep me interested in his writing. His sentences are often redundant: he still insults and patronizes the reader’s intelligence by explaining too much. For instance, an Asimov tendency is to physically describe his characters—who are futuristic humans who have different fashion cues than we do—then take two more sentences or paragraphs to describe how that physical description should be interpreted by the reader. He tells some things poorly. Things like this annoy, especially when the storytelling is good and these descriptions distract.

And that is exactly where Asimov starts to shine here, the story pacing and scope. The first tale, “The General”, tells the story of the Empire’s last effort to seize The Foundation. The story apparently loosely follows the lines of Byzantine history regarding Belisarius (the General is named Bel Riose) and Justinian. The story is told from the perspective of two captives of Bel Riose: one a double agent, another an old politician who is forced to help the general because his family is hostage.

As a sequel to the earlier five short stories, this story retains a Foundation trader as a main character. Yet, here Asimov uses the switch of narrative focus to military science fiction as a springboard to start to explore themes other than economic or political ones with his series. Political themes still exist here, but the focus is on military intrigue. This variety is much needed, and it contributes to my enjoyment of the story. Where Asimov already created a vibrant, complex world, this story finally starts to use that complexity to explore other paths, and its narrative benefits from this exploration by being engaging for its own sake. I’m not saying that writing stories with easy to grasp risks—like military science fiction—is better, I’m just saying that Asimov does it well here, and he had already trod the economic and political whodunnit in the other five stories.

The second story is “The Mule”, where I really started to enjoy the storytelling. “The General” was a good foray into new territory. This is a good short story, full stop. Another military and political drama, this time two Foundation citizens save a clown from his master, an ambitious mutant known as The Mule, who has it out for the Foundation. They end up being entirely unable to stop him from conquering the Foundation, and when Seldon’s Crisis Speech is about a different crisis, the power goes out on Terminus and The Mule takes over. His power comes from mental powers to affect the brains of others. The first Foundation is helpless because they are physical scientists. However, the four heroes attempt to find the mythical Second Foundation—full of psychologists and psychohistorians—to seek help or warn them. One of the heroes dies while trying to share that he found the Second Foundation, killed by one of the other four, because another of the other four has been The Mule all along.

Typically, Asimov would just end it there. Instead, he spends a few pages actually marching back through the story and laying out the inconsistent and uncharacteristic choices the characters made that led this one to realize who The Mule was—portrayed as an interview between The Mule and the murderer. And then the friendship shown overpowers the villain’s sense of revenge and he lets his two friends go alive, so that he can then go continue his search for the Second Foundation, the unknown threat. This backtracking and resolution is a vast improvement over all six short stories that have come before in this series. I certainly had noticed that some choices seemed uncharacteristic, but honestly, based on Asimov’s usual writing skill, I thought it was just a lack of clarity. To have Asimov take me back through where his characters erred in hiding their identities is brilliant, and provides a nice cap on the story. Yet even the Mule’s reasons for letting the Darell’s go seems inconsistent with the tale of woe that led him to try and take over the galaxy.

The other thing so strong about this story is the length. The length allows some complexity and allows the content to have impact on the story itself. Instead of trying to do too much with too little, Asimov writes a longer tale, probably a novella more than a short story, so that he can discuss more of the implications of what he’s talking about. This allows things that happen early on to come back with power at the end, allowing the reader to feel that time has passed and the story is coming full circle, helping things make sense without more info dumping. Asimov doesn’t abandon concise narrative though. One thing he’s always done is allow the reader to figure some of the narrative out, to reflect on earlier parts and gain insight through hints dropped by Asimov. Though he often spends a lot of time spelling things out too far, it’s usually only description or character based.

This story also gets away from retelling Roman history in the Foundation series. Though the Mule can be analogous to charismatic figures from history, his specific superpowers do not line up with any known figure from history. This is more of a supervillain story, from the pages of comic books, and less of a historical narrative. But there still exists one obvious example from history: the Herodotus conclusion that soft times create soft men. After a number of Seldon Crises have passed, like the one in “The General”, and the Foundation realizes that none of their efforts were actually needed to survive some of the crises, they start to trust in the Seldon Plan more and more, becoming almost religious about it, yet also becoming complacent, losing some of their drive. The independent traders complain about the central government’s complacency and plan a revolution, a rebellion, yet are utterly derailed by The Mule.

I think this tenor and depth of writing suits Asimov, and the length is perfect for his voice. I quite like “The Mule” as a novella, and may go back and read it again soon. And this encouraged me to give the first book another try. Much improved, still bad writing, but the storytelling carries the writing well.

The Other Wind by Ursula K Le Guin

Over time, Ursula K Le Guin wrote her Earthsea stories. She later took apart some of what she built early on—she changed her mind, and changed her Earthsea world. I’m not at all upset or in disagreement with her over this. I am actually more into this than an author who ignores or is embarrassed by their earlier works. I’m happy people change their minds, it gives me hope. The question here is this: now that she has deconstructed parts of her world, what does Le Guin do with it? The answer is quite simply that she continues to deconstruct it, taking apart the afterlife on Earthsea. That’s the theme of the book: death.

But there’s a problem with death here. You’ll need to remember The Farthest Shore to understand. The problem with death is that dead human souls go to the Dry Lands, where they have a listless, colorless existence, an eternal life of boredom. Well, turns out, the Dry Lands once belonged to the Dragons, humans stole it so long ago only the black wizards of Paln remember that, and Dragons want to claim it back. Some forgotten spell set up the Dry Lands, and apparently messed a bunch else up too in Earthsea. So the heroes research and talk and decide to bring in more voices to their discussion. Finally, by deconstructing the containing wall of their afterlife, the immortal human souls are then able to rejoin the cycle of life, death, and rebirth instead of being trapped in a black and white world, a fake immortality. This also means the humans are able to live up to their end of their ancient treaty with the Dragons, reconciling the two cultures—that’s the main plot—and in the meantime a subplot reconciles the Kargish lands with the rest of Earthsea, and another subplot also reconciles the black magicians of Paln with the Roke Wizards.

This plot relies on what her earlier books contained. The referential nature of this book clearly means that this is not a book to read unless you’ve read some other Earthsea first. Even then, it’s a fairly strange plot on the surface. But though Le Guin seems to be just talking about this made up world’s death and afterlife, this outlandish fantasy plot is actually doing something applicable. She’s talking about looking around, questioning what is, realizing that some of reality is the result of ancient, forgotten errors, and then doing what needs done to fix it despite the fact that those old mistakes are not ours. Taking responsibility for fixing problems that weren’t ours to begin with, reparations, the strength of humility, overcoming biases and fears to allow change for the better, sacrifice, the importance of wisdom and power. It’s a strong theme that really came home for me as a contemporary analogy to post-colonialist country borders.

But that’s not all the book does. Le Guin weaves in the tales of her characters: Alder, Idrian, Tenar, Tehanu, Lebannen, Ged, Seserakh, the master wizards of Roke. The story focuses on their day to day, on trying to get along with each other, on the conflict inherent in trying to come to grips with their discovery of what’s wrong with death. In other words, the heroes do heroic things, but they’re just people. In the midst of all this crazy, metaphysical, mythological repatriation, Seserakh’s sea-sickness is a major plot point. Tehanu’s shyness proves important throughout. Alder trying to deal with dreaming about his recently-dead wife sets this whole book off. And there are a hundred other examples of how Le Guin keeps these heroes people and not archetypes. It’s a strong tactic that made this book memorable for me. It adds complexity to the narrative and contextualizes the heroes’ quest in the same way Gawain and the Green Knight did so well—though much more completely than that text.

And that should be enough said. This is a great book, but it utterly relies on the reader having read the three preceding books in the series, at least. Le Guin balances the overarching, fantasy plot with relatable, human subplots perfectly. She relates her fantasy plot to current ideas about redrawing the map of the world, things like letting Tibet and Kurdistan exist, redressing mistakes made during the colonial era, getting cultures to work together, doing the courageous to fix the mistakes of the past, and taking responsibility for actions not that were done by you, but which are perpetuated by you. It’s a great book that doesn’t get bogged down by these high themes, nor does it lose itself in the details of the characters’ lives, but it shows just enough of both to allow the book to work well as a closing novel in this series of six books. Because it was more complex, I was more into this one than the other books in the series, and the first five were so good that I didn’t regret having to read them to fully appreciate this masterpiece at all.

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

This wonderful author wrote two beloved series that both prominently feature collections of short stories. This is the fifth book of Earthsea, and it’s a collection of short stories. That’s an unusual tactic. But I think that the short story, novella, novel, poem, play, and essay all have their own strengths. I also really enjoy short stories—China Mieville, Isaac Asimov, Raymond Carver, Franz Kafka, Sherman Alexie, Ray Bradbury. Two questions guide these notes: why use short stories, and should this book stand alone?

1. Why short stories? What does Le Guin use this form to do? Pessimistically, short stories aren’t strong enough to stand on their own, they become a sort of fan service collection of lesser quality work, thrown away ideas. Optimistically, the concise form allows the author to focus on a single theme more, or, in this case where the short stories are part of a larger world, they can deal with characters that are not essential to the main stories of the world.

Here, Le Guin writes five stories, along with an introduction and the pseudo encyclopedic “Description of Earthsea”. These tales tie into the stories of the novels sometimes, and sometimes start their own stories. They run the gamut from historical context to origin story to small love story. And it is that variety that I love the most about this book. Rather than writing “Five Adventures of Ged”, she has taken the opportunity to flesh out her world significantly. Before this book, I thought of a small Earthsea. After this book I thought of a larger Earthsea, and I think that’s useful to the point of the book.

The five stories are:
“The Finder”: The original founding of Roke was done by women and men together, rather than the men-only tale that the school lies about now.
“Darkrose & Diamond”: A wizard of great potential gives it up for the love of a woman.
“The Bones of the Earth”: Ogion learns his greatest spell from a woman, and learns to despise Roke’s male-dominated nature—explaining why he isn’t archmage and why he looks with measured disdain on Roke.
“On the High Marsh”: A man seeking power was thrown into exile, this describes the exile and shows how he is redeemed by love.
“Dragonfly”: And the fifth tale is the epilogue to Tehanu, the novel that precedes this book, and the introduction to The Other Wind, the novel that succeeds this book. In this story, a woman who is part dragon gains access to the male-only college of wizards on Roke.

The first one fills in some gaps in Earthsea lore. By showing the importance of women to the early school on Roke, Le Guin changes the way I think about the characters in the novels. Gone is some of the awe for the wizards, as their petty superstitions about women get in the way of the true balance they are constantly paying lip service to.

The second story is one that wouldn’t fit into a novel easily—its length means that it wouldn’t work as an aside, and its content relies upon that length for power. Yet it’s just a small love story in some ways, and not complex enough to justify centering a new novel around it. So, this story perfectly works as a short story exploring an alternate Ged, one who fell in love with a girl and regrets giving it up for the power of magic.

The third story chronicles one of the legendary deeds attributed to Ogion in the novels—stopping the earthquake on Gont. Yet, by looking at it in detail, we see the network of friends who were essential to Ogion’s deed, especially the woman who sacrificed herself, selflessly knowing she would get no credit. This story probably could have fit into the first novel, or the third, or the fourth. But the short story form allows the writer to focus on the themes and characters more, and spend less time drawing it together with the novels, in a way that makes this a powerful stand-alone tale of Earthsea. Though it helps explain Ogion better, it is also simply an exciting tale to read.

The fourth story is probably the best one. It takes an antagonist from the novels, after he has been defeated and exiled, and shows his exile and redemption. He loved power, was defeated, realizes his mistakes, and now experiences the power of love as a path to redemption. Ged, the man who beat him, shows up simply to show forgiveness. It’s a tale of self-forgiveness, dealing with mistakes, and love that simply stands alone better than the rest of the stories in this book.

The fifth story sets up the central questions of the coming novel. Yet, like the first story, it relies heavily on the surrounding context of Earthsea as laid out in the novels to work at all. These characters of the Masters of Roke are sketchy here, and their reactions are better understood when having read the other novels. Yet, for a short story, this would be a distracting aside in any of the novels except the forthcoming one. This could have been the opening chapter of the next novel pretty easily, but the narrative structure is so self-contained that it may have been quite awkward.

In using the short story form, Le Guin is able to focus on different aspects of these characters and her Earthsea world. In general, Le Guin uses these short stories to flesh out the world of Earthsea. Some of these tales insert women into places of power and importance in Earthsea. This is a sort of retconning—and to me this term does not have a negative connotation at all. Who am I to enforce that an author never change their mind? Here, we have an author who decided to put women into stories that were generally thought to be male dominated in the past.

2. The second question then is whether these stories stand on their own enough, or if Earthsea knowledge is necessary for them to work. My impression is that the answer is a mixed bag. “On the High Marsh” stood out to me, for sure, as a great short story in its own right. And its my favorite because it seems to exist as a story Le Guin wanted badly to tell, without reference to the novels—though that reference is there for people who read the novels.

The other two middle stories mostly stand alone. But they are so enhanced by prior Earthsea experience, that I hesitate to call them great on their own right. They’re good stories, but I think that knowledge of the context helpfully points out some of the contradictions that make these stories enjoyable.

However, the opening and closing tales are so dependent on prior Earthsea knowledge that they disappoint as stand-alone short stories.

I’m always struggling to review sequels, books in series. I mean, on the one hand they don’t often stand on their own, and I really want them to. On the other hand, they are written for a specific audience, usually one who has read the prior book or books. I will just say that this book works as intended. As a reader of Earthsea, this book worked for me. But it wasn’t perfectly satisfying either, as I wanted more stand alone stories, and less tie-ins.